Character Creation
__TOC__ Overview A session of Darklands begins by aging the party members-to-be from childhood and on through their careers, in 5-year intervals from age 15. Choices made here impact their core Attribute scores, which cannot rise by any normal means during the campaign, and Skills, which can. All the choices affect eligibility for new occupations in CharGen. There are complex trade-offs involved. Generally, high-status occupations the character achieves before the start of the adventure impart greater benefits, but struggling against the slings and arrows of a low-status origin imparts higher Attribute scores. When the character ages past 30 in CharGen, Skills can continue to be trained to very high levels. However, Strength, Endurance, and Agility will begin to deteriorate quickly. Late in life even Perception, Intelligence, and Charisma suffer. Attribute Scores During childhood, the EPs shown at the bottom row in the table above are available for allocation, and they shape the character. Attribute scores can be boosted to as high as 40. The increments of 30 to 39 require 2 EP each, and rising from 39 to 40 requires 3 EP. From the baseline values printed above, boys receive innate +3 Str, and girls receive +2 End and +1 Chr. Only men can hold the professions of Friar, Priest, or Bishop. Saints Agnes, Agatha, and Margaret favor women. The presence of a charismatic woman in the party can give the party some options of dead-last resort in a couple of situations. ;Strength & Endurance :These are the primary attributes used in battle. Strength and Endurance are a high priority for every party member; they should be approaching 40 apiece in order for the party to prevail in hard engagements and fight effectively while burdened with good Armor. It is best to leave them roughly equal on each character, so that he is not especially-prone to collapse (in the case of weak End) or death (low Str). Most military career paths improve these stats slightly until the character hits 30. Sedentary careers reduce them. ;Agility :EPs are too valuable elsewhere to invest much, if anything, in Agl, although there are occasions where it is good to have a single character able to climb. The effective Agl score in combat is reduced by encumbrance, so sacrificing Str and End for it is counter-productive. Nearly the only occasion for Agl in combat is when the party comes under arrow fire, but wearing heavy armor to prevent penetrating hits is vastly preferable to removing armor and trusting the odds of evasion. Strong skills can supplement weak Agl in most cutscene interations. ;Perception :One party member should have a good Per score, but it is not crucial. Bear in mind that the Truesight potion, and many saints as well, give very large boosts to this attribute. Religious occupations and the military occupation of Captain require Per. ;Intelligence :This attribute is only useful to the party's alchemist, for whom it is essential. Notably, the specific career path of Student → Alchemist → Master Alchemist is available to children of any background as long as they have 35+ Int and focus on their studies. ;Charisma :The designated party leader needs high Chr to succeed in personal interactions. Prices seen at vendors when buying and selling goods are non-random, and adjusted point-for-point by the leader's Chr. Alchemists also need as much Chr as they can spare, too, in order to obtain the services of Alchemists in towns. Aging Starting the adventure at age 30 or 35 is best for giving characters high combat potential and workable skill ratings. Very young or ancient parties are a challenge. Youths will have trouble with feats of negotiation and skill, but can learn. Older adults can start with a huge skill set as well as Per, Int, or Chr approaching or even exceeding 50, but at huge cost to their fighting abilities. ;Benchmarks: *Age 15-20: Characters receive +2 to all skills, and +20 EPs to spend on skills. 20 is the earliest age possible to start. *Age 20-25: Characters receive +5 EPs. *Age 30-35: Str, End, and Agl start to deteriorate during this career interval. *Age 45-50: Professions that normally improve Str and End cease to do so during this career interval. *Age 65-70: The final career interval. 70 is the latest age possible to start. *Skill Level 49: Above this, skills cost 2 EPs to increase. The automatic increases remain normal. *Skill Level 79: Above this, skills cost 3 EPs to increase. ;Table Analysis of the QuickStart Party The QuickStart party has a few assets that are unlikely or impossible for custom characters, but on the whole, is too old and has poorly-optimized ability scores. And that is not to mention how it skips Darklands' rather exciting and unique CharGen system. ;Gretch A party leader spread too thin on attributes; ideally her Chr should have been higher, as well as her Str and End, while the inflated Per, Int, and Agl scores should have been dumped. *Her plate armor is otherwise-impossible to acquire in CharGen. When Quickstart is selected from the opening menu, though, she wears brigandine instead. *She started out with approximately 88 EPs worth of attributes, in line with Nobility and rising to Knight. *Her charisma means she should be the leader when visiting the Markt and handling most other interactions. ;Gunther: Basic combat unit with some survival skills, this archetype is hard to screw up. *He started out with approximately 100 EPs, slightly more than the 97 of a Rural Commoner. *Optimized fighters should generally avoid setting out at age 40 or older, but he is still in good shape. *His Per could have been moved over to Agl for missile resistance and climbing. *Needs to buy a mace. ;Hans: Alchemist with excellent Int but some prohibitive flaws. *He started out with approximately 109 EPs. His Str, End, and Agl have decayed 5-10 points each from his age and professions but remain plausible. *He will have trouble making deals with the Alchemists selling crucial knowledge in towns, because his Chr and SpkC are poor. The SpkC can be raised with effort, but the Chr cannot. *He does not know as many formulas as one might expect for his age, but his 35q Essence o'Grace recipe is an undeniable asset. *His armor is non-standard for alchemy careerists. ;Ebhard Religious characters can readily get by with stronger combat traits if they do not aim for Bishop or are willing to start earlier. Because of the random fashion of Virtue increases in the game, and to make use of everyone's Divine Favor, it may be wise to spread saintly knowledge and basic religious training around the party rather than have a dedicated cleric like this one. *Like Gretch he has plate armor when added to the party in CharGen, but brigandine in Quickstart. *He started out with approximately 92 EPs with likely stints as an Abbot/Bishop and then a Knight, suffering 7-10 points deterioration in Str, End, and Agl. *The armor encumbers him, slowing his strike rate in combat. *His saintly knowledge is useful, and his Virt is high enough to leverage it right away. Finnian can improve Gretch and Hans's Chr. Raymond Lull improves Alchemy brewing rates. He can heal party members in an emergency. Category:World Information